After teasing it out for the last little while, BMW has taken the wraps off it's updated G70 7-Series flagship luxury sedan.
This generation of 7 has always been an exceptionally striking car, and they've chosen to lean even further into that with an almost-art-deco style that takes cues from new Neue Klasse vehicles, like the i3 and iX3.
At a glance it looks like BMW eliminated the current car's divorced lighting arrangement, but instead they've made it almost invisible; while the razor-thin strip of running lights steal the show, the real headlights, are hidden in the tops of the intake flanks on either side of the front fascia.
Said flanks, gills, air curtains, whatever you wish to call them, are now larger, giving visual balance to the taller kidney grilles and 'absent' headlights. Similarly, rear lighting mirrors the i3, and helps the car look a little more distinct, and more obviously BMW.
I'll concede I had some mild trepidation when I saw the first teaser images, but I like what I see so far. I should have known they'd pull it off.
A neat new trick of this new 7 is the paint, which was already extremely impressive. In the past we have been floored to see or feel absolutely zero seam between the 7's signature two-tone paint schemes, and they've stretched that artistry even further. If you're so inclined and appropriately well-heeled, you can order two-tone finish that is both matte (Frozen in BMW parlance) and gloss, with the same absence of any seam.
Each car ordered as such will spend three full days in paint, with much of the work - including but not limited to the pinstripe - being done by hand.
Inside is even more obviously Neue Klasse, borrowing the trapezoidal centre screen, iDrive operating system, and panoramic display spanning across the bottom of the windshield. While we've yet to do a full review of this new interface, we've played with it on multiple occasions, and it, at least thus far, appears to be a work of genius. BMW's choice to deploy this on their flagship model is a welcome one.
I am... less enthused about the passenger screen, which is new to the 7... but I'll reserve final judgement until I get to play with it.
The LCI G70 (LCI meaning Life Cycle Impulse, or BMW speak for mid-cycle-refresh) 7-Series will launch this year as the all-electric i7 xDrive 60, which also benefits from the Neue Klasse's technology under the skin. The battery pack uses the same exterior dimensions as before, but uses new sixth-gen battery cells to increase energy density by 10%, with a new total capacity of 115 kWh.
This new battery feeds more efficient drive units, that have now benefit Silicon-Carbide inverter, along with the transmission and electronics all integrated into the motor housing. This all helps to enable a very impressive electric range of 560 kilometers.
The G70 7-Series was already an extremely impressive car, and they've taken it even further with a tidier, more striking design, a user interface that's well beyond anyone else, remarkable drivetrain engineering, and exacting craftsmanship befitting of the world's finest luxury marques.
The first of these LCI'd 7-Series, the i7 xDrive 60, will start rolling out this summer. A plug-in hybrid 750e will follow early next year, and V8-powered model, almost certainly using a derivative of the BMW M5's powertrain, will follow after that. You can count on more coverage to come as the cars arrive.
